Percy, who could have talked like a sewing-machine to Lady Clara Vere de Vere, found his ideas dry up, and, when violently spurred, merely develop themselves in monosyllables. He had rehearsed several bright little nothings which were to have been laid like _bonbons_ at her feet. Where were they now? She knew some men in the service—Mr. Poynter in the Rifles. Did he know Mr. Poynter, who danced so well, talked so charmingly, and was _so_ handsome? Yes, he knew Poynter, and hated him from that moment. Did he know Captain Wyberts of the Bays, the Victoria Cross man whom she had met at the Galway Hunt Ball? He knew Wyberts, and cursed the luck that placed no decoration upon _his_ tunic but a silken sash. “By the way, you _must_ be the gentleman who interested himself in my toilet on Friday night. Lanty Kerrigan spoke burning words in your favor, if _you_ are the _preux chevalier_. Are you?” “I assure you, Miss Joyce, I didn’t know who you were at the time, when the blackguards seemed lazy about your parcel.” “If you had known me, would that have made any difference, Mr. Bingham?” she asked laughingly. “It would.” “In what way?” “I would have thrashed Lanty Kerrigan and have brought the parcel myself.” He threw so much earnestness into this that the red blood flushed up to the roots of Mary Joyce’s rich brown hair. “I must see to my tackle,” she said in a confused way. “Are you an angler, Miss Joyce?” “Look at my boots”—a pair of dainty, dumpy little things such as Cinderella must have worn on sloppy days when walking with the prince, with roguish little nails all over the soles crying, “Stamp on us; we like it,” and creamy laces fit for tying up bride-cake. “By Jove!” exclaimed Percy Bingham, and that was all he was able to reach at that particular moment. He thought afterwards of all he could have said and—didn’t. A walk of half a mile brought them to the Shauraunthurga, or “Boiling Caldron,” whose seething waters dashed from rock to rock, and boiled in many whirlpools as it rushed madly onwards to the wild Atlantic. What did Bingham care about the fishing? Not a dump. He stood by _her_ side, set up _her_ cast, sorted _her_ flies, spliced the top joint of _her_ rod, and watched with feverish anxiety the eccentric movement of _her_ gorgeous decoy, as it whirled hither and thither, now on the peat-brown waters, now in the soap-suds-like foam. “_Bravissima!_ Splendidly struck!” he cried with enthusiastic delight—he felt inclined to pat her on the back—as the young Galway girl, with “sweet and cunning” hand, hooked her fish with the _aplomb_ and dexterity of a Highland gillie. “Give him line, plenty of rope, and mind your footing!”